The aftermath

I don’t know if you heard, but the Phillies won the World Series. And the city went a little nuts. 

As soon as the game ended, Fox showed live footage of Broad and Shunk, where people were flowing into the street like they had been waiting on the sidewalk for hours, stuck behind an invisible force field. “That’s amazing,” I thought, “and knowing this city, probably going to end in fire and devastation.”

So, of course, I immediately put on my shoes and ran to Broad Street. If the city burns I want to watch. 

I felt a great pull to Broad as I walked. Cars and groups of people ran by me, everyone screaming, everyone elated, all of us heading towards the smell of beer, sweat, and fire. One tiny street was having a make-shift block party, blasting Eye of the Tiger, energizing us as we walked. We fell into step with the beat. I felt connected as I marched westward to the city’s hub. Connected and alive and teeming with something I could not explain. Two decades of a forced dry-spell had ended, and the entire city felt the waves of the orgasm spread out over us. 

So of course, we looted. 

Well, not all of us. There was no looting in South Philly to my knowledge. Here, however, is a video of a Robinson’s Luggage store in center city being looted. Philly.com has some other great videos too, of mobs overturning cars and destroying bus terminals. 

South Philly was less violent and more drunk. For some reason everyone centered around Broad and Shunk. It was impossible to move at that intersection, while the street right before it and after it (one of which being Oregon, a major road) were barely filled. I didn’t witness anything that wasn’t out of the ordinary (considering the circumstances), just the standard climbing street signs and peeing on the sides of houses. 

Please note, my co-worker did not actually push the statue down by herself. Or did she?

When I walked to work this morning, you could barely tell any devastation had happened. I take the subway to City Hall, and cross through it to get to my office. As I walked under the arch onto 15th street I thought to myself “wow, I can’t believe the city is so spotless after last night.”

And then I thought “wait, wasn’t there a streetlight on this corner yesterday?”

My personal favorite piece of devastation has to be what the mob did to the statue outside The Prince Theater.  They nearly ripped it off its base. It’s sad because I really liked that statue, but I have to admit it’s impressive because I’m pretty sure its made of steel.

This link has some great pictures of the aftermath, including fires, fights, and arrests. 

The most important news item you’ll read today…

It is Free Taco Day for America. On Tuesday, October 28 (today) from 2:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. (local time) participating Taco Bell’s will be giving away one free taco per person, no purchase necessary.

More information about why it’s Free Taco Day is here (Tampa Bay Rays shortstop Jason Bartlett stole a base at the right inning, winning everyone tacos. As a Philadelphian I’d never thought I’d say this, but thank you Mr. Bartlett).

Exclusive Screening Tonight

Now, I know most of Philadelphia has other plans tonight, but if you don’t care about sports the lovely Rachel Riot would like you to know about an event.

There will be a sneak-peak screening of Summer Heights High at the Troc tonight, featuring DJ Excel. It will feature complimentary Australian food and beverages (which I can only assume means beer). Doors open at 7 p.m., the screen is at 8 p.m. 21+ to enter (and the Troc cards, so sorry, kids).

It’s RSVP only, so click here to do that.

Or, ya know, apparently there’s this game tonight. In some sport. Where some team might win the World Series for the first time in 20 years. I don’t know, I guess you could do that too.

The passing of Scarlett the cat.

At my job I really can’t do anything without our website, and its been down since I got here today. Today may be a heavy posting day.

Anyway, I found this link on fark:  Scarlett the cat is dead. Her story is adorable and made me get a little sad. Back in 1996 she was found because there was a fire in the factory where she was raising her kittens. The firefighters showed up and saw her, burned from the fire with damage to her face and eyes, go back and forth into the building for that she could pick up each of her kittens and carry them to safety.

God speed, Hero Cat.

Thoughts on Ashley Todd.

For some reason this is google's second hit for Ashley Todd. I'm ok with that.

I’ve read that the woman who carved a B in her face and claimed a mugger did it because she had a McCain sticker on her car is mentally unstable and has a few illnesses, which is why I hesitate to make fun of her. However according to Neil Gaiman’s blog she’s upset at the media for blowing things out of proportion and causing the country to go crazy.

As an unofficial member of the media, and also as a logical thinking human being, this pisses me off. Let’s examine what happened here:

A white woman said a black man mugged her, and then became enraged when he saw that she was a Republican so he took out a knife and carved into her face. And she said this weeks before an election that has been filled with racism. And she thought no one would care about that?

I don’t think she’s actually upset that the media picked up on this. I think she’s upset that the national media picked up on it and led to her becoming a punch line. There’s no way you make up the story she did if you don’t want publicity or attention. She probably assumed she would get attention from her family and friends, and maybe the local press, but that that would be it. You don’t make a story that big unless you want someone to look at you. (Part of me even thinks that in the back of her head she thought this was a great way to help McCain.)

By the way, this article has some interesting thoughts on the media firestorm from the right that broke after her story did.

(I am amused that when I googled “B carved on face woman” the first hit was the yahoo news article from when the story first broke and people were still assuming she was telling the truth. Only, the picture that’s going along with the article is a close-up of her face. Because its a close-up you can’t see that the rest of the picture is her being led away in handcuffs. So yahoo updated the article enough to have a recent picture, but not to point out that she lied?)

Phillies rally, and a non-sports fan’s thoughts on a city gone insane.

I should have posted this last night, but I decided to succumb to the stereotype and watch Game 1 of the World Series at Lucy’s bar. On a related note: Yay, we won (if you didn’t know by now)!

My work shut down at noon on Wednesday so that we could all (except for the lovely and dedicated Heather) go to the rally at City Hall. It appeared to be a bit disorganized, but was still a good time. After reading the line-up for Game 1, the speaker introduced Mayor Nutter…who was late. It was like a scene in a movie. Nutter was introduced, the speaker turned around, there was 30 seconds of panicked silence from the stage, and then the speaker went back to the microphone and started a Phillies’ chant. 

The pattern of “just make them chant to fill time” continued when Mayor Nutter finished his speech. There would be an awkward pause, he’d turn around and whisper something to the man behind him, then start a chant. The crowd would stop, there’d be an awkward pause, he’d turn around, then start another chant. That happened about three or four times. 

Yeah, baby, shake it for Momma.

Still, the rally was energizing. It succeeded in pumping up the fans and giving out hope that maybe, just maybe, this would be the year. And my boyfriend the Phillie Phanatic was there, so I got some eye-candy. 

 

And now: The Emotions of a Non-Sports Fan when their City’s Team Goes to the World Series:

8:45 a.m. Don’t-really-follow-sports-fake-excitement-to-not-get-killed-on-the-subway: ”Hey guys, I have this hat. I’m one of you! Yeah. Go local sports team. Woot. LA sucks. I mean Florida. Or Boston. Or…erm, I forget who we’re playing. Whatever, everyone sucks but us! Yeah.”

9:00 a.m. Infectious excitement from co-workers: YEAH WE’RE GONNA WIN! LET’S SEND A SNARKY E-MAIL TO THE FLORIDA OFFICE. YEAH THAT WAS AWESOME! WOOOOOH! I WEAR MY HAT WITH PRIDE!

9:05 a.m. Shame: ”Hey wait, where’s your Phillies gear?” “Well, I have this one hat…” “Just one hat? Oh, I see.” 

9:30 a.m. Fear: ”Oh crap. If we win I’m not going to be able to sleep tonight.” “Because you’ll be so happy?” “Because my neighborhood won’t stop screaming.” 

9:31 a.m. Fear with a hit of desperation: “…and if we lose I won’t be able to sleep because of the riot. Damn it. Maybe I should sleep at the boy’s tonight. Safe in New Jersey where people don’t climb street signs or throw beer cans at cops…” (Note: When the Phillies won the game that put them in the World Series 9 people were arrested at the Cottman and Frankford intersection for doing just that. That’s apparently the place to be.)

10:15 a.m. City Pride, perhaps in the wrong thing: 

co-worker from out of state: “I couldn’t find a rally schedule online.”
our boss: “A schedule?”
co-worker: “Yeah, to say when the Keynote speakers will come on…”
boss: “Oh no. This is Philadelphia. A lot of people will just show up and yell a lot.” 
co-worker: “Oh. At every Colts rally I’ve been to John Mellencamp shows up at a certain time…”
me: “Yeah. That won’t happen. Just the yelling.”

12:00 p.m. Unnatural Sports Pride Brought on by the Phanatic: “WOOH!!! WOOOOOOOOOH!” 

1 p.m – 8:22 p.m. Worn Out: “Ok, that was fun. Wait, there’s a game tonight?”

8:22 p.m. – the end of the game. Drunk. 

Frankly, I just keep thinking of this Penny Arcade comic.

College TV

Those of us living in the city proper can enjoy the best of two of the Big Five college’s TV programing. Drexel TV is channel 54, while La Salle 56 is channel (surprise surprise) 56.

I am a former Communication major from La Salle, so I have a certain biased affinity for their TV station. It’s usually either a community outreach program, or an off-the-wall comedy show run by students. Comparatively Drexel, with its fancy budget, is usually running a Hollywood movie or a documentary about Philadelphia. The general stereotype, therefore, is that while La Salle 56 puts more control of its content in the student’s hands, Drexel TV has better programming to watch, especially if you aren’t a college-aged individual.

So today I was scrolling through the channels and decided to see what La Salle 56 had to offer me, as I usually know someone on there. For the past – I do not exaggerate – 20 minutes La Salle has been airing a Windows XP screen savor. That’s it. Just a screen savor.

After about 10 minutes of watching this the self-deprecating La Salle student in me decided to see what awesome programming Drexel TV had on opposite this fascinating moving art experiment, to see how Drexel was beating us this time.

Drexel TV has for the past ten minutes been showing nothing. Just a blank screen.

So, for once, La Salle wins. Though, I think it may be a hollow victory.

Banana Cream Pie tragedy.

I was driving by Olga’s Diner, the landmark diner of the Marlton Circle in New Jersey, over the weekend and noticed that it was closed. Today, the lovely Heather sent me a link confirming that Olga’s is temporarily closed. Seems they forgot to pay their gas bill.

Bonnie update

Looks like Philadelphia’s favorite FLF (felon you’d love to…well, you know) is getting five years in prison. 

Fun Links:

Here’s some fun links I found on my nightly tour of the internet:

XKCD vs. The New Yorker.

Grandparents create two-story giant playhouse for their grandchildren.  

Adidas has created a shoe based on the Phillies blunt.